I'm almost a convert. I guess one of the things that's kept me from doing so is that early in my iPhone ownership, I downloaded an app that warned on its page that it would not work with jailbroken phones.

I'm almost a convert. I guess one of the things that's kept me from doing so is that early in my iPhone ownership, I downloaded an app that warned on its page that it would not work with jailbroken phones.

Have not attempted JB yet......What is up with the highlighted blue text below?

thanks
BR

1. Download Redsn0w for Mac and Windows.

2. Run Redsn0w, click on "Jailbreak" and check "Install Cydia". Follow the instructions on the screen.

3. Wait and be done.

That simple. If you have an unlocked iPhone you should choose the custom IPSW option to preserve it. Like always, if you do this and things break, we're not responsible for it (but don't worry, it should workand you can always go back to the original Apple firmware).

Have not attempted JB yet......What is up with the highlighted blue text below?

thanks
BR

1. Download Redsn0w for Mac and Windows.

2. Run Redsn0w, click on "Jailbreak" and check "Install Cydia". Follow the instructions on the screen.

3. Wait and be done.

That simple. If you have an unlocked iPhone you should choose the custom IPSW option to preserve it. Like always, if you do this and things break, we're not responsible for it (but don't worry, it should work&#8212;and you can always go back to the original Apple firmware).

Click to expand...

Jailbreaking and unlocking are two different things. Jailbreaking just frees your iPhone from Apple's restrictions. Unlocking frees your iPhone from your carrier. In other words, you could unlock your AT&T iPhone and use it with a MetroPCS SIM card. The visual voicemail and some of the other carrier related niceties won't work with MetroPCS, but you won't have to worry about an AT&T contract.

Both the jailbreak (Redsn0w) and the unlock (Ultrasn0w) upload a patched version of the iOS firmware to your iPhone. If you apply the jailbreak after the carrier unlock, without using the customized firmware (IPSW = iPhone Software) you can overwrite your unlock. If you do that, it's no biggie. You can always unlock it again.

Now restoring my 72 apps and about 100 podcasts. That'll take a little bit.

Jamie

[edit] Scratch that. Having some issues. Re-synced my phone, everything appeared normal, but now I don't have any phone, message, App Store icons on the phone, plus probably a couple others. No Cydia or Absinthe icons either.

Ok, got it straightened out. I think it was something I was doing wrong.

So.... now what? I'm staring at my phone and it looks and responds exactly the same as before. I clicked on the Cydia app, which ran some file structure process, then I opened up Cydia and I'm staring at the app...

Another nice thing about Jailbreaking your iPhone is it gives you access to the file structure. Within the file structure, if you navigate to private/var/mobile/<wbr>Library/Keyboard/<wbr>dynamic-text.dat you can fix all the f(#$*king stupid "auto-corrects" your iPhone has learned with nothing more than a text editor.

Ok, got it straightened out. I think it was something I was doing wrong.

So.... now what? I'm staring at my phone and it looks and responds exactly the same as before. I clicked on the Cydia app, which ran some file structure process, then I opened up Cydia and I'm staring at the app...

Jamie

Click to expand...

That's pretty much it. It doesn't do anything drastic to the phone. It looks the same because it is. It's just letting you do the changing now rather than being stuck with what Apple says you have to.

Take a look at iBlackList. It's a firewall for your iPhone. If you don't want to hear from someone, add their number and/or e-mail to a blacklist and they don't get through. As far as you're concerned, they no longer exist.

Install Winterboard and change your iPhone's theme.

Install OpenSSH and do a google search on how to get access to your file structure in order to do things like change your messaging tones or edit your "auto-correct" dictionary.

Install the NotiQuiet tweak to give you control over those pop-up messages that kick you out of whatever app you're in.

I bought LockInfo to give me a quick glance at any messages, reminders, weather, e-mail, etc. by simply pressing the power button at the top.

I bought MyWi so I could turn my iPhone into a WiFi hotspot without paying AT&T US$20.00 per month for simply allowing me access to a feature built into the damn phone.

As a quick test, I just successfully removed the incorrect "Littke" that my iPhone "learned" in my haste to fire off a text message from the Dynamic-Text.dat file. If it suggests anything, it now suggests, "Little", which is what it should.

f.lux
Ever notice how people texting at night have that eerie blue glow? Or wake up ready to write down the Next Great Idea, and get blinded by your computer screen? During the day, computer screens look good&#8212;they're designed to look like the sun. But, at 9PM, 10PM, or 3AM, you probably shouldn't be looking at the sun.

F.lux fixes this: it makes the color of your iPhone's display adapt to the time of day, warm at night and like sunlight during the day.
It's even possible that you're staying up too late because of your iPhone. You could use f.lux because it makes you sleep better, or you could just use it just because it makes your iPhone look better. (Also available for your Mac.)

Edit: I really like this one. It's just kind of nice for it to warm the colors in the evening.

I give it two jkams:

SpringFlashActivator based iPhone 4 LED flashlight. Default activation method is to double tap the power/sleep button. But you can assign any activator event to enable the LED torch for a bright LED flash light. To change the activation method, after installing and respringing, go to settings app, activator, and assign the flashlight to an action of your choice.

Edit: This one can be dangerous. If you accidentally double tap the power/sleep button or press it one too many times while you're putting the screen to sleep and shove your iPhone in your pocket you may inadvertently activate SpringFlash, not realize it, and be surprised to find out you've completely run your battery down without knowing it the next time you pull your phone out to use it. Don't ask me how I know this.
You can assign any activation method you want to this, but the power/sleep button was the big seller because you didn't have to unlock your iPhone in order to activate the flashlight. I've since removed this one from my iPhone.
This one gets one Muttpark.

SwipeSelection
A tweak to give you more control and an much, much easier method of selecting text.
Rather than try to describe it, here's a video of it in action. Warning: Annoying music.
<iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/RGQTaHGQ04Q" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" width="560"></iframe>

Edit: After working with this one for months, I maintain it's worth jailbreaking your iPhone for this "tweak" alone.

I wouldn't be surprised to see Apple implement this as part of the iOS soon. Nearly everyone in who has jailbroken their iPhone is using it.

Allows you to assign a gesture to the contact screen. For instance, when you look up a contact you can set a "tap" to call that contact, a "long press" to send that contact a message, and so on... If you click the "Detailed View" indicator (the little blue circle with the arrow in it) you'll get the standard contact info and selections.

CallTap doesn&#8217;t append the home screen with any additional app icons but does come with its own preferences bundles that lives within the native Settings app.

In Cydia, it's called "CallTap", in the Settings app, it's called "ClickToCall".

Edit: This tweak only works when you scroll through your contacts. If you search for a contact, the tweak doesn't work with the result set.

This one gets two Hmmmms.

Edit: I use this one so little, that I'd honestly forgotten that I had installed it on my iPhone. Well, either that or it integrates so seamlessly that you forget that it's not "stock".

SwipeAway is a jailbreak tweak that simply allows you to close all the apps that are running on your iOS device by a single swipe in the task switcher. Just open up the task switcher, and the swipe up or swipe down (select in the settings) to close all the running apps.

That&#8217;s it, just swipe and all the apps are closed. There is only one setting, in which you can select between swiping up and swiping down to close all your apps.

Although some are naturally more economical than others when it comes to managing storage space on their iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, I think most of us would agree that if we could top up our quota for a few extra songs, apps, games or video clips, we probably would.

There are many different things to try when freeing up those precious few megabytes of space, and although manually sorting through each file and app would seem the most logical method, this is time consuming, and because were becoming less and less inclined to perform tasks manually, this is where iCleaner  a Cydia tweak developed by Exile.90  becomes of relevance.

Described as the ultimate iPhone cleaning app, you can either run it through a terminal app of your choosing, or simply tap on the home screen icon, although the latter does offer far less in terms of optimization. The app works like much CCleaner on Windows  it rids your device of unnecessary data  freeing it up for those extra music tracks, useful apps, or editions of Angry Birds.

iCleaner will eradicate any half-downloaded Cydia packages (if youve had a few failures in your time, then there will surely be many loose files knocking around behind that brown icon), as well as much of the older cache files and cookies forming a plaque-like mass off needlessness within your Mobile Safari app. You can pick and choose which apps it cleans up (if youre going down the Terminal route), and its advised you select those apps you visit the most, since they are the likeliest to hold excess data. So if you spend a lot of time on Twitter, Facebook, or indeed Instagram, then pointing iCleaner in their directions will likely yield higher space improvements once the process is complete.

In some apps  particularly those such as Safari  youll probably want to pick and choose which aspects you want to remove as opposed to going in gung-ho, in which case youll need to download a terminal app from Cydia. For this purpose, wed recommend MobileTerminal, and once youve downloaded it from Cydia, run it. Type in login root in order to gain root access, and then your password, which will be alpine by default. If you regularly SSH into your device, your root password should be altered to reduce your risk of somebody else obtaining access. To do so, type in passwd without the quotations, after which youll be prompted to type in and confirm a new password.

To run iCleaner, simply type iCleaner (again, without the quote marks), and youll be met with a set of options. The first option will analyze your apps, the second will clean them up. On my iPhone 4S, it discovered 4295 files totaling 242 MB, and deleted them. Considering its the 64GB model, the space isnt particularly significant, but to me, having too much space is better than having potential space cluttered by what is essentially junk.

For those of you who want access to their file structure...
iFile for iOS

The iFile app, compatible with jailbroken iPhones and iPads, is considered to be the best file manager available for iOS devices. With advanced features such as Dropbox integration and the ability to edit code on the go, iFile is a must have for any jailbroken user who likes to tinker with their device. iFile comes as a free of charge download with an unlimited trial version but also provides an option to purchase a license to unlock premium features.

I don't use this one much, but with Dropbox integration and the ability to use as a download manager with Chrome and other browsers, you owe it to yourself to at least get the free version.